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Chapter 4 Abstract and Synthesis by Caroline Murphy
Abstract
Chapter 4 of Fair Isn’t Always Equal addresses the topics of portfolios, rubrics, and self-evaluation as forms of assessments. All three have their strengths and weaknesses, most often measured by the kind of picture of a student’s achievement they can present. A rubric that is too strict can stunt creativity and prevent acceptance of all learning styles, but a portfolio that is too lenient does not accurately show how a student is performing in given topic. The key to good assessment is finding a balance between analytic and holistic approaches, just as with the different types of rubrics. The chapter makes that point that overall, the benefits of a particular form of assessment are related to how well they show a student’s individual progress, and how they reflect the different kinds of intelligences that all students possess. Also key to success is teachers making students aware of their expectations and giving them opportunities to improve their performance. The goal of assessment is for teachers to use it to meet the needs of their students, so good assessment gives teachers an accurate portrait of how their students are doing and allows them to tailor the remainder of their lesson around the results. Overall, assessments are a way to show how students have grown throughout a content unit, and also for them to see how they have evolved and measure their own personal progress. Rubrics, portfolios, and self-evaluation are three of the many ways for teachers to showcase student achievement and gather information to adapt their curriculum to better suit the needs of their students.
Synthesis
As a class, we all seemed to be impressed with portfolios and self-assessment as methods of measuring student achievement. There was widespread agreement that portfolios can present a good range of material with which to measure progress, and that they are a good hands-on way to show what a student has learned. We also believe that students assessing their own work is an important part of the grading process, and that it should be incorporated at all levels of instruction. Several people also thought that portfolios can be a good method of self-assessment as well, because they give a good picture of a student’s work from beginning to end and tell a lot about everything a student has learned. There was also a consensus that rubrics are a bit of a challenge to make and that there is potential for them to be counterproductive in the classroom when they are too specific or strict. However, we also agreed that the straightforwardness and clear instructions of a rubric are beneficial to students, and that they encourage equality and fairness. As a class we all seemed to be comfortable with the idea of using all three types of assessment described in the chapter, and we had varying ideas of how to best adapt those methods to work in our classrooms. We all want our assessments to work for our students, to bring out the best in them and for them to allow us to meet their needs.
=
=
Kiera Timme
In Chapter 4, of Fair Isn’t Always Equal, the author Rick Wormeli continues his discussion of assessment from Chapter 3. In this chapter, the author details three key types of assessment: portfolios, rubrics, and student self-evaluation. The first assessment type, portfolios, involves cataloguing student work over the course of a year. Portfolios provide teachers, parents, and the students themselves with an overarching view of the students’ performances. As such, portfolios present teachers with a great way to “determine accurate grades in a differentiated classroom” (Wormeli, p43). Rubrics are a grading system in which student achievements are measured through clearly delineated guidelines, based on specific parameters that are dependent upon what is being assessed. Rubrics often come in two types. The first is analytic, and the second is holistic. The analytic approach allows teachers to gain more subjective feedback on their students, whereas the holistic approach provides more objective feedback.
As a clipboard, one of my favorite features of a rubric is that it provides students with a clear idea of what it expected of them. However, as mentioned by the author, a poorly designed rubric that details the specifics of what is acceptable evidence of learning could lead to students not aiming for more, and simply achieving the bare minimum. Despite any potential draw backs, rubrics seem like a great tool to help assess student achievement. Of the three assessment types suggested, the one that excited me the most was idea of creating student portfolios. I love the description of portfolios being “mirrors” through which students can “see their own development and take charge of their learning” (Wormeli, p43). I would love to incorporate electronic portfolios into my future classroom.
Frank Makuch
The chapter describes three important types of assessment; portfolios, rubrics, and student self-assessments. A portfolio is a good way to focus on smaller assignments that will mean more to the student then a final assignment at the end of a unit. The grade for the portfolio is likely to be more indicative of the work because the student decides what to put in the portfolio and what to leave out or touch up. A portfolio can be used in many instances, and does not hav
e to be just for art. Rubrics are a good way to focus student learning. Designing a rubric is not as easy as many people think, practice is required to make a good rubric, and a rubric constantly needs to be upgraded. When designing a rubric a teacher must consider whether to make the grading holistic or analytic. According to the author, an analytic rubric will be more subjective while a holistic rubric may not give students adequate feedback. The last type of assessment to be described is student self-assessment. Students should be asked to make reflective statements about their learning in hopes of becoming more aware of their skills and shortcomings so they can improve. Another effective activity is to make logs or journals where students can reflect. In my classroom, I think that I will use rubrics and self-assessments. I’m not convinced that portfolios are helpful as I did not see their use when I had to make them in high school. Rubrics are the most common sense assessment type. Self-assessment seems like the most interesting and useful because it forces students to reflect on their own work. That is really the best way to improve.
Garrett Hodgkins
Chapter 4 discusses some of the most important types of assessment ( at least according to this book.) It discusses the benefits of portfolios, rubrics, and student- self assessment. Some of the benefits of a portfolio is that it is "an excellent way to determine accurate grades for students in differentiated [[#|classes]]." It gives students an opportunity to view their own work throughout a particular class, as well as giving the teacher an accurate view of the student's gained masteries throughout the work period. Rubrics are important because it is a way to put our goals of assessment down on paper, in a clear concise way that a student can understand. Student self- assessment is important because it gives a student a chance to look at how they view their own progress, as well as give teacher feedback on what may have been hard for the student to understand about their lessons, as well as what worked well. In a future classroom I will definitely be including all three of these important assessment types. before I had even read t his chapter I knew how helpful these could be, and certainly afterwards I feel even more so. What could be more helpful than gaining feedback from what students feel their own shortcomings may have been ( although they wouldn't have been their shortcomings, but my own failures as a teacher), or having all of a students work conveniently places in one binder so I could see the extent of a students growth throughout my class?
Sean Falasca
Portfolios are where we begin in chapter 4. Portfolios are great ways to tell if a student has achieved mastery. There are no interpretation or guessing to be made about the level of mastery. Unlike tests or quizzes, in portfolios, students get to reflect on their work and progress when they are asked to choose some of their own work to put together a portfolio. They can be one-year things or be put together over an entire academic career. They can be a hard copy, electronic copy, or even both. Another way to differentiate to show student knowledge and mastery is to use rubrics. They give multiple options on how to complete one assignment and have clear instructions as to what knowledge they are expected to gain. Students can also keep their own journals and blogs. This can greatly demonstrate if they actually understand content, like or dislike a subject, or even give insights to other aspects of the student’s life. I would implement any one of these great self-assessment tools. Students should be just as involved in their education as teachers are. I want my students to feel comfortable enough in my classroom to be unafraid to tell me what works for them and what doesn’t. Given students the chance to be comfortable enough to work with their strengths and self-assess can infuse them with motivation to perform well in their [[#|assignments]]. Keeping students motivated and comfortable in the classroom is a must in order to be successful as a teacher.
Tess Perry
Chapter 4 highlighted 3 commonly used assessment types. The three assessments discussed were portfolios, rubrics and self-assessments. Portfolios display the evolution of student’s work, which provides the teacher with a clear idea of whether or not student has shown mastery. Portfolios can be limited in content, presenting only a few pieces of work over the length of a unit or can contain a hefty amount of work over several years. The second type of assessment mentioned was rubrics. Rubrics set the standard and provide a fair grading process. While grading the teacher knows exactly what will prove mastery because she has outlined it in the rubric. Rubrics provide students with a detailed summarization of what is expected and what will qualify as going above and beyond. The third type of assessment in this chapter is student self-reflection. Using reflections obliges students to review and consider their own work. From self-reflection students and teachers can create individualized goals to work towards in the future. When reading the title of this chapter I would not have guessed that portfolios, rubrics and self-reflections would be the three most important types of assessments. By thinking back on my school experience I would have guessed tests, essays and presentations to be the three assessments in this chapter. The rationales for each assessment convinced me that they are the three most important ones. Portfolios would be an excellent way to get an overview of students work. Rubrics provide a fair and level playing field, everyone knows the ‘rules’ and expectations for a project. Self-reflection teaches the important life skill of looking back and noticing what was successful and what should be done differently in the future.
Kaitlyn Bowie
The focus of this chapter was ways in which you can track, record, and review student’s progress in a manner that adapts to multiple levels of learning. The first strategy talked about student-compiled portfolios, where students would pick out assignments that showed great improvement and difficulty throughout the allotted time, and would then have to justify why they picked that piece. The second strategy focused on rubrics, which are traditionally administered by the teacher before an assignment begins so as to show the students what is expected of them as learners, and what qualifies them as exceeding the standard. This method also helps the teacher to break down a standard and make sure that everything about the assignment will fulfill what is required of their school standard. The third strategy focused on self-assessment, a strategy that can either stand-alone or accompany one of the other strategies at the end of an assignment. Here a student is forced to look at their own work and take responsibility for the grade they believed they earned. This can help the teacher to help assess whether or not the student understood the standard of what was expected for that particular lesson. Out of the three standards, I find myself mostly being drawn to the rubric and self-assessment strategies, mostly because I found them to be the most effective in my own education. Every unit would receive it’s own general rubric, and then I would develop sub-rubrics for projects. However, the sub-rubrics would only be slightly altered and more specific version of the unit rubric. Self-assessments would be required at the end of every unit, because I feel that one after every project might feel a bit repetitive and seem like busy work to my students.
Tori Penney
Chapter 4 of FIAE discusses the different kinds of assessment. The first discussed is portfolios and how beneficial they are in assessment. The student and the teacher can both see the growth over time, and the development of the student throughout the year. I liked having portfolios in my writing classes because it was easy to just print off all of my work, but in other classes I hated making portfolios. The book also suggests sending the portfolios home at least once during each grading period, which I think is a great idea. Sending a portfolio home with a student's report card would be very beneficial, because then the parent(s) can truly see the progress of the student and what they need to work on, as well as witness the reason for the students grade. I will consider doing this in my class, and having the students hold on to their papers, projects, and homework’s to bring home and show the family. Chapter 4 also goes into rubrics, which are something that all students are accustomed to. Rubrics are everywhere starting at elementary school and going all the way up to the college level, so I will for sure be using rubrics that way students can see what they did good and needed to work on to improve. I feel like rubrics aren't as personal as conversations though, and also not as explanatory, so I will probably have conversations with the groups or the students to go over the rubrics after major projects.
Jon Delorme
Chapter 4 – Three Important Types of Assessment
One of the three assessment types strongly suggested by Rick Wormeli in Chapter 4 is requiring students to keep a portfolio of their work. This can either be digital or hardcopy, and I honestly like the sound of this idea. I think portfolios would really get the self-knowledge facet of learning because it would allow the students to easily reflect on their learning over time. The two other assessment types suggested are rubrics and student self-assessment. Concerning rubrics, I never realized how complicated they could be. My teachers often had rubrics in high school and it was nice to see what one had to do to achieve an A. But I never knew of all the different possibilities there are in rubric creation: holistic or analytic, how many categories, how should I label them? Even the words used to describe the categories should be considered. I like exceptional, strong, capable, developing, beginning, and emergent. I find sophisticated, mature, good, adequate, and naïve to be a little harsh sounding. It is a little over-whelming to see how much goes into creating rubrics.
The third assessment type suggested is using student self-assessments because it “provides invaluable feedback and helps students and their teachers set individual goals (51).” I remember often receiving these at the end of the year during high school. Thinking back, getting them at the end of the year did not really do much to further my learning. By then it was too late for the teacher to use that information because school was ending. Maybe when I am a teacher I will work student self-assessments into the middle of my unit. I like the idea of students keeping reflective journals, and the portfolio idea mentioned earlier could also be used as a self-assessment tool.
Caroline Murphy
On page 48, the author mentions how students often aim for the second or third level of achievement when given a ranked rubric, either because they do not think they are capable of reaching the highest level or because they do not want to put in the extra work required to get there. I think this says a lot about assessment, and its implications for how we grade our students are things that I will take into the classroom with me. It is absolutely necessary for teachers to make their students feel confident that they can perform at a high level, and they must also push they to go beyond what is just good enough for a decent grade. I think rubrics can be helpful for that by giving students clear, specific instructions on how to reach a high level of achievement on a particular assignment, but I think holistic rubrics can be useful too because they put the attention on the learning process behind the project as opposed to just the end result grade. The student self-assessment section was really informative too. As an English teacher, a lot of the work I do with my students will center around writing assignments and personal responses to reading, and I think there is a place for self-assessment in both of those situations. I really like the idea of having students keep a reading journal to help them keep track of how they felt about the text, because it would get them into the habit of evaluating their own thoughts about the class material and could even lead into a cumulative assignment at the end of the unit.
Alison Hutchins
Portfolios are introduced in this chapter as a great way to really keep track of how all of the students in your classroom are doing with the content. They are a very versatile way to assess student understanding yourself, and also to help students assess themselves. Having such a hands on way for students to assess mastery is no doubt a great option, especially if you want to be able to watch the progression of their mastery over time. It's also great for students to see how they have grown throughout your unit, semester, or year, depending on how you utilize portfolios. It can also make it easier for students to organize the work that they have done. Another great option is to use rubrics. The great thing about rubrics is that they set out really clear guidelines for students to meet. Using them to grade also shows students where they have done really well, and where they need to work harder to meet the standards, or come to the teacher for help or differentiated instruction. This all also enables student self-assessment, which allows students to critically look at how they are progressing, and where they can grow even more.
Anything that makes an educators can do to make instructions and expectations more clear to students is great. I really want to make students feel more comfortable and relaxed in the classroom, as unnecessary stress just deters learning. I also think it is definitely really important that students can see how they are progressing with the content you are giving them, as it can give them confidence to grow even more.
Amy Jones
This chapter highlighted 3 different but equally as important types of assessments, they are:
Portfolios: these are very useful especially if you working with a differentiated curriculum. You will be able to see the progress of your student over time. This allows you to accurately see if the student is putting in the time to enhance their learning and also have them be able to see their improvement.
Rubrics: Rubrics are especially great for your clipboards in your class. These allow the teacher to show their students in advance what exactly they are going to be grading on, and how. There are many different types of rubrics, each helping different learners asses their tasks.
Self Assessment: There are many reasons why self assessment is key. Most of the time the student is their hardest critique. If you let them reflect on their work and the time they put in for the most part they can either say, maybe I could have put more time into this, or I deserve a great grade for the amount of work I did. There are many types of self assessment, a couple of them are:
Giving the same prompt at the beginning and end of your lessons, have them see their progression and understand their own thinking.
Another example are journals. I feel as though journals are very important and the more I read how they can help students, the more important they seem. Having students keep journals and being able to communicate through them will improve connection between student and teacher tremendously!
Molly Olsen
Chapter 4 focused on what they call "three important types of assessment", which includes: portfolios, rubrics, and student self-assessment. On page 43 the text explains: "With portfolios, teachers can collect and examine work over time. Because of portfolios' longitudinal nature and the big picture they provide of students' development, teachers don't have to make as many inferences about students' mastery based on single samplings. As a result, interpretations of students' mastery are more valid, and subsequent decisions we make are more effective." But teachers aren't the only ones who find portfolios useful to reflect on student progress, it helps students to get a clearer picture as well.
Students will also have a better idea of their progress and work if you have student self-assessments. An often used technique is to have students fill out a self-assessment right before passing in a project, and then having the teacher grade alongside it. Sometimes seeing what a student truly feels about his work can help you see if they feel like they're trying (or not). If I feel there's a consistent problem with students performances, I will implement this assessment to get a better understanding of the students feelings toward their work.
The final type of assessment discussed is the "rubric", which is basically a guideline of what you are looking for in a project. On page 45, it says that "teachers need to examine their rubrics in terms of: content, clarity, practicality, and technical quality/fairness." Sometimes teachers will give a clear picture of what would earn a student the highest grade possible, but then are a little more vague for the lower scores explanations. The reason for this is if they see the higher goal and nothing else; they are focused on the best, and won't strive for mediocrity, as they might if lower expectations were outlined.
Table of Contents
Chapter 4 Abstract and Synthesis by Caroline Murphy
Abstract
Chapter 4 of Fair Isn’t Always Equal addresses the topics of portfolios, rubrics, and self-evaluation as forms of assessments. All three have their strengths and weaknesses, most often measured by the kind of picture of a student’s achievement they can present. A rubric that is too strict can stunt creativity and prevent acceptance of all learning styles, but a portfolio that is too lenient does not accurately show how a student is performing in given topic. The key to good assessment is finding a balance between analytic and holistic approaches, just as with the different types of rubrics. The chapter makes that point that overall, the benefits of a particular form of assessment are related to how well they show a student’s individual progress, and how they reflect the different kinds of intelligences that all students possess. Also key to success is teachers making students aware of their expectations and giving them opportunities to improve their performance. The goal of assessment is for teachers to use it to meet the needs of their students, so good assessment gives teachers an accurate portrait of how their students are doing and allows them to tailor the remainder of their lesson around the results. Overall, assessments are a way to show how students have grown throughout a content unit, and also for them to see how they have evolved and measure their own personal progress. Rubrics, portfolios, and self-evaluation are three of the many ways for teachers to showcase student achievement and gather information to adapt their curriculum to better suit the needs of their students.Synthesis
As a class, we all seemed to be impressed with portfolios and self-assessment as methods of measuring student achievement. There was widespread agreement that portfolios can present a good range of material with which to measure progress, and that they are a good hands-on way to show what a student has learned. We also believe that students assessing their own work is an important part of the grading process, and that it should be incorporated at all levels of instruction. Several people also thought that portfolios can be a good method of self-assessment as well, because they give a good picture of a student’s work from beginning to end and tell a lot about everything a student has learned. There was also a consensus that rubrics are a bit of a challenge to make and that there is potential for them to be counterproductive in the classroom when they are too specific or strict. However, we also agreed that the straightforwardness and clear instructions of a rubric are beneficial to students, and that they encourage equality and fairness. As a class we all seemed to be comfortable with the idea of using all three types of assessment described in the chapter, and we had varying ideas of how to best adapt those methods to work in our classrooms. We all want our assessments to work for our students, to bring out the best in them and for them to allow us to meet their needs.=
=
Kiera Timme
In Chapter 4, of Fair Isn’t Always Equal, the author Rick Wormeli continues his discussion of assessment from Chapter 3. In this chapter, the author details three key types of assessment: portfolios, rubrics, and student self-evaluation. The first assessment type, portfolios, involves cataloguing student work over the course of a year. Portfolios provide teachers, parents, and the students themselves with an overarching view of the students’ performances. As such, portfolios present teachers with a great way to “determine accurate grades in a differentiated classroom” (Wormeli, p43). Rubrics are a grading system in which student achievements are measured through clearly delineated guidelines, based on specific parameters that are dependent upon what is being assessed. Rubrics often come in two types. The first is analytic, and the second is holistic. The analytic approach allows teachers to gain more subjective feedback on their students, whereas the holistic approach provides more objective feedback.As a clipboard, one of my favorite features of a rubric is that it provides students with a clear idea of what it expected of them. However, as mentioned by the author, a poorly designed rubric that details the specifics of what is acceptable evidence of learning could lead to students not aiming for more, and simply achieving the bare minimum. Despite any potential draw backs, rubrics seem like a great tool to help assess student achievement. Of the three assessment types suggested, the one that excited me the most was idea of creating student portfolios. I love the description of portfolios being “mirrors” through which students can “see their own development and take charge of their learning” (Wormeli, p43). I would love to incorporate electronic portfolios into my future classroom.
Frank Makuch
The chapter describes three important types of assessment; portfolios, rubrics, and student self-assessments. A portfolio is a good way to focus on smaller assignments that will mean more to the student then a final assignment at the end of a unit. The grade for the portfolio is likely to be more indicative of the work because the student decides what to put in the portfolio and what to leave out or touch up. A portfolio can be used in many instances, and does not have to be just for art. Rubrics are a good way to focus student learning. Designing a rubric is not as easy as many people think, practice is required to make a good rubric, and a rubric constantly needs to be upgraded. When designing a rubric a teacher must consider whether to make the grading holistic or analytic. According to the author, an analytic rubric will be more subjective while a holistic rubric may not give students adequate feedback. The last type of assessment to be described is student self-assessment. Students should be asked to make reflective statements about their learning in hopes of becoming more aware of their skills and shortcomings so they can improve. Another effective activity is to make logs or journals where students can reflect. In my classroom, I think that I will use rubrics and self-assessments. I’m not convinced that portfolios are helpful as I did not see their use when I had to make them in high school. Rubrics are the most common sense assessment type. Self-assessment seems like the most interesting and useful because it forces students to reflect on their own work. That is really the best way to improve.
Garrett Hodgkins
Chapter 4 discusses some of the most important types of assessment ( at least according to this book.) It discusses the benefits of portfolios, rubrics, and student- self assessment. Some of the benefits of a portfolio is that it is "an excellent way to determine accurate grades for students in differentiated [[#|classes]]." It gives students an opportunity to view their own work throughout a particular class, as well as giving the teacher an accurate view of the student's gained masteries throughout the work period. Rubrics are important because it is a way to put our goals of assessment down on paper, in a clear concise way that a student can understand. Student self- assessment is important because it gives a student a chance to look at how they view their own progress, as well as give teacher feedback on what may have been hard for the student to understand about their lessons, as well as what worked well.In a future classroom I will definitely be including all three of these important assessment types. before I had even read t
his chapter I knew how helpful these could be, and certainly afterwards I feel even more so. What could be more helpful than gaining feedback from what students feel their own shortcomings may have been ( although they wouldn't have been their shortcomings, but my own failures as a teacher), or having all of a students work conveniently places in one binder so I could see the extent of a students growth throughout my class?
Sean Falasca
Portfolios are where we begin in chapter 4. Portfolios are great ways to tell if a student has achieved mastery. There are no interpretation or guessing to be made about the level of mastery. Unlike tests or quizzes, in portfolios, students get to reflect on their work and progress when they are asked to choose some of their own work to put together a portfolio. They can be one-year things or be put together over an entire academic career. They can be a hard copy, electronic copy, or even both. Another way to differentiate to show student knowledge and mastery is to use rubrics. They give multiple options on how to complete one assignment and have clear instructions as to what knowledge they are expected to gain. Students can also keep their own journals and blogs. This can greatly demonstrate if they actually understand content, like or dislike a subject, or even give insights to other aspects of the student’s life. I would implement any one of these great self-assessment tools. Students should be just as involved in their education as teachers are. I want my students to feel comfortable enough in my classroom to be unafraid to tell me what works for them and what doesn’t. Given students the chance to be comfortable enough to work with their strengths and self-assess can infuse them with motivation to perform well in their [[#|assignments]]. Keeping students motivated and comfortable in the classroom is a must in order to be successful as a teacher.Tess Perry
Chapter 4 highlighted 3 commonly used assessment types. The three assessments discussed were portfolios, rubrics and self-assessments. Portfolios display the evolution of student’s work, which provides the teacher with a clear idea of whether or not student has shown mastery. Portfolios can be limited in content, presenting only a few pieces of work over the length of a unit or can contain a hefty amount of work over several years. The second type of assessment mentioned was rubrics. Rubrics set the standard and provide a fair grading process. While grading the teacher knows exactly what will prove mastery because she has outlined it in the rubric. Rubrics provide students with a detailed summarization of what is expected and what will qualify as going above and beyond. The third type of assessment in this chapter is student self-reflection. Using reflections obliges students to review and consider their own work. From self-reflection students and teachers can create individualized goals to work towards in the future.When reading the title of this chapter I would not have guessed that portfolios, rubrics and self-reflections would be the three most important types of assessments. By thinking back on my school experience I would have guessed tests, essays and presentations to be the three assessments in this chapter. The rationales for each assessment convinced me that they are the three most important ones. Portfolios would be an excellent way to get an overview of students work. Rubrics provide a fair and level playing field, everyone knows the ‘rules’ and expectations for a project. Self-reflection teaches the important life skill of looking back and noticing what was successful and what should be done differently in the future.
Kaitlyn Bowie
The focus of this chapter was ways in which you can track, record, and review student’s progress in a manner that adapts to multiple levels of learning. The first strategy talked about student-compiled portfolios, where students would pick out assignments that showed great improvement and difficulty throughout the allotted time, and would then have to justify why they picked that piece. The second strategy focused on rubrics, which are traditionally administered by the teacher before an assignment begins so as to show the students what is expected of them as learners, and what qualifies them as exceeding the standard. This method also helps the teacher to break down a standard and make sure that everything about the assignment will fulfill what is required of their school standard. The third strategy focused on self-assessment, a strategy that can either stand-alone or accompany one of the other strategies at the end of an assignment. Here a student is forced to look at their own work and take responsibility for the grade they believed they earned. This can help the teacher to help assess whether or not the student understood the standard of what was expected for that particular lesson.Out of the three standards, I find myself mostly being drawn to the rubric and self-assessment strategies, mostly because I found them to be the most effective in my own education. Every unit would receive it’s own general rubric, and then I would develop sub-rubrics for projects. However, the sub-rubrics would only be slightly altered and more specific version of the unit rubric. Self-assessments would be required at the end of every unit, because I feel that one after every project might feel a bit repetitive and seem like busy work to my students.
Tori Penney
Chapter 4 of FIAE discusses the different kinds of assessment. The first discussed is portfolios and how beneficial they are in assessment. The student and the teacher can both see the growth over time, and the development of the student throughout the year. I liked having portfolios in my writing classes because it was easy to just print off all of my work, but in other classes I hated making portfolios. The book also suggests sending the portfolios home at least once during each grading period, which I think is a great idea. Sending a portfolio home with a student's report card would be very beneficial, because then the parent(s) can truly see the progress of the student and what they need to work on, as well as witness the reason for the students grade. I will consider doing this in my class, and having the students hold on to their papers, projects, and homework’s to bring home and show the family.Chapter 4 also goes into rubrics, which are something that all students are accustomed to. Rubrics are everywhere starting at elementary school and going all the way up to the college level, so I will for sure be using rubrics that way students can see what they did good and needed to work on to improve. I feel like rubrics aren't as personal as conversations though, and also not as explanatory, so I will probably have conversations with the groups or the students to go over the rubrics after major projects.
Jon Delorme
Chapter 4 – Three Important Types of Assessment
One of the three assessment types strongly suggested by Rick Wormeli in Chapter 4 is requiring students to keep a portfolio of their work. This can either be digital or hardcopy, and I honestly like the sound of this idea. I think portfolios would really get the self-knowledge facet of learning because it would allow the students to easily reflect on their learning over time. The two other assessment types suggested are rubrics and student self-assessment. Concerning rubrics, I never realized how complicated they could be. My teachers often had rubrics in high school and it was nice to see what one had to do to achieve an A. But I never knew of all the different possibilities there are in rubric creation: holistic or analytic, how many categories, how should I label them? Even the words used to describe the categories should be considered. I like exceptional, strong, capable, developing, beginning, and emergent. I find sophisticated, mature, good, adequate, and naïve to be a little harsh sounding. It is a little over-whelming to see how much goes into creating rubrics.
The third assessment type suggested is using student self-assessments because it “provides invaluable feedback and helps students and their teachers set individual goals (51).” I remember often receiving these at the end of the year during high school. Thinking back, getting them at the end of the year did not really do much to further my learning. By then it was too late for the teacher to use that information because school was ending. Maybe when I am a teacher I will work student self-assessments into the middle of my unit. I like the idea of students keeping reflective journals, and the portfolio idea mentioned earlier could also be used as a self-assessment tool.
Caroline Murphy
On page 48, the author mentions how students often aim for the second or third level of achievement when given a ranked rubric, either because they do not think they are capable of reaching the highest level or because they do not want to put in the extra work required to get there. I think this says a lot about assessment, and its implications for how we grade our students are things that I will take into the classroom with me. It is absolutely necessary for teachers to make their students feel confident that they can perform at a high level, and they must also push they to go beyond what is just good enough for a decent grade. I think rubrics can be helpful for that by giving students clear, specific instructions on how to reach a high level of achievement on a particular assignment, but I think holistic rubrics can be useful too because they put the attention on the learning process behind the project as opposed to just the end result grade. The student self-assessment section was really informative too. As an English teacher, a lot of the work I do with my students will center around writing assignments and personal responses to reading, and I think there is a place for self-assessment in both of those situations. I really like the idea of having students keep a reading journal to help them keep track of how they felt about the text, because it would get them into the habit of evaluating their own thoughts about the class material and could even lead into a cumulative assignment at the end of the unit.Alison Hutchins
Portfolios are introduced in this chapter as a great way to really keep track of how all of the students in your classroom are doing with the content. They are a very versatile way to assess student understanding yourself, and also to help students assess themselves. Having such a hands on way for students to assess mastery is no doubt a great option, especially if you want to be able to watch the progression of their mastery over time. It's also great for students to see how they have grown throughout your unit, semester, or year, depending on how you utilize portfolios. It can also make it easier for students to organize the work that they have done. Another great option is to use rubrics. The great thing about rubrics is that they set out really clear guidelines for students to meet. Using them to grade also shows students where they have done really well, and where they need to work harder to meet the standards, or come to the teacher for help or differentiated instruction. This all also enables student self-assessment, which allows students to critically look at how they are progressing, and where they can grow even more.Anything that makes an educators can do to make instructions and expectations more clear to students is great. I really want to make students feel more comfortable and relaxed in the classroom, as unnecessary stress just deters learning. I also think it is definitely really important that students can see how they are progressing with the content you are giving them, as it can give them confidence to grow even more.
Amy Jones
This chapter highlighted 3 different but equally as important types of assessments, they are:Molly Olsen
Chapter 4 focused on what they call "three important types of assessment", which includes: portfolios, rubrics, and student self-assessment. On page 43 the text explains: "With portfolios, teachers can collect and examine work over time. Because of portfolios' longitudinal nature and the big picture they provide of students' development, teachers don't have to make as many inferences about students' mastery based on single samplings. As a result, interpretations of students' mastery are more valid, and subsequent decisions we make are more effective." But teachers aren't the only ones who find portfolios useful to reflect on student progress, it helps students to get a clearer picture as well.Students will also have a better idea of their progress and work if you have student self-assessments. An often used technique is to have students fill out a self-assessment right before passing in a project, and then having the teacher grade alongside it. Sometimes seeing what a student truly feels about his work can help you see if they feel like they're trying (or not). If I feel there's a consistent problem with students performances, I will implement this assessment to get a better understanding of the students feelings toward their work.
The final type of assessment discussed is the "rubric", which is basically a guideline of what you are looking for in a project. On page 45, it says that "teachers need to examine their rubrics in terms of: content, clarity, practicality, and technical quality/fairness." Sometimes teachers will give a clear picture of what would earn a student the highest grade possible, but then are a little more vague for the lower scores explanations. The reason for this is if they see the higher goal and nothing else; they are focused on the best, and won't strive for mediocrity, as they might if lower expectations were outlined.